Rick Perry faces a Friday deadline to meet a subpoena from House Democrats’ in their impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump and the energy secretary is now freer to testify in that probe since he has turned in his resignation.
But whether or not Perry cooperates with Democrats in their investigation remains a question mark – as does whether the Energy Department will comply with the subpoena.
Perry said he will follow the recommendation of the department’s general counsel in regards to the subpoena.
‘Our general counsel is taking a look at that right now. When they send their answer in at the end of the day, whatever their decision will be I’ll follow that,’ he said Friday morning on Fox News.
He also said he would follow legal counsel if he’s asked to testify personally in the investigation.
‘I’m going to rely upon our general counsel to give me advice,’ he said.
Rick Perry faces a Friday deadline to meet a subpoena from House Democrats
Perry told Fox News he will follow the advice of his general counsel about the subpoena and if he gets a request to testify
Rick Perry could testify to lawmakers in their impeachment inquiry after President Donald Trump blamed Perry for his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president
House lawmakers subpoenaed the Energy Department – Perry has until Friday to comply
The Pentagon, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and acting OMB director Russell Vought are not cooperating with congressional subpoenas as the White House prepares its offensive campaign against the investigation.
The former Texas governor told Trump on Thursday he intends to resign as energy secretary – a move that comes as House Democrats appear closer to issuing a subpoena for his testimony about allegations that the president with held nearly $400 million in military aid from the Ukraine unless officials there committed to investigating Joe and Hunter Biden along with unproven theories about the 2016 election.
Perry said his resignation had nothing to do with the Ukraine.
‘It has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with the last eight or nine months I have been looking back to Texas on a regular basis,’ he told Fox News.
He described his relationship with President Trump as ‘awesome.’
Perry would be freer to testify once he is no longer part of the administration and he may cooperate as a way to salvage his reputation, people who know him told Politico.
‘For the most part, he has a lot to lose by getting embroiled in this and he’s not going to want to hide things,’ a source close to Perry told the news website. ‘He’s going to want to extract himself as cleanly as he can from this snare.’
Earlier this month, Trump, on a phone call with House Republicans, blamed the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to the impeachment proceedings against him on Perry.
‘Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG [liquefied natural gas] plant,’ the president told lawmakers, according to Axios.
That blame throwing could compel Perry to testify.
But Perry told Fox News he ‘absolutely’ pushed Trump to make the call.
‘Absolutely. I called multiple times and said you know, whether it was to [then-National Security Adviser] John Bolton, to whether it was Mick Mulvaney, when I saw the president I said Mr. President it’s time to make this phone call. I think bringing in this president and showing him that we are going to be good, reliable,’ he said.
Perry was one of the ‘three amigos’ on the Ukraine, along with special envoy Kurt Volker (left_ and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland (right)
Perry tweeted a photo of a September meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence
Perry was one of the ‘three amigos’ – the group of administration officials leading Trump’s outreach to the Ukraine – along with special envoy Kurt Volker and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, both of whom have testified to lawmakers in the impeachment inquiry.
And Perry has already begun to separate himself from the president. He told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Trump directed him to reach out to Rudy Giuliani about the Ukraine.
In their phone call, Perry told the Journal, Giuliani blamed the Ukraine for the infamous Steele dossier with its unproven claims that Russia had blackmail information on Trump, claimed the Ukraine had Hillary Clinton’s email server, and said the country ‘dreamed up’ evidence that helped send former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to jail.
‘I don’t know whether that was crap or what,’ Perry said and added: ‘But I’m just saying there were three things that he said. That’s the reason the president doesn’t trust these guys.’
Perry also said Giuliani didn’t make any explicit demands on the call.
‘Rudy didn’t say they gotta do X, Y and Z,’ Perry continued in his interview. ‘He just said, ‘You want to know why he ain’t comfortable about letting this guy come in? Here’s the reason.’
Trump, in that July 25 phone call with Zelensky, asked the Ukrainian president for help investigating the Bidens.
Both the president and Giuliani have pushed the unproven theory that Joe Biden, as vice president, pressured the Ukraine to fire a prosecutor to help a gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board.
The two men also have pushed the unproven theory that it was Ukrainians behind the 2016 email hack at the Democratic National Committee and made it look like the Russians.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters at the White House on Thursday the administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine until officials there agreed to investigate the conspiracy theory about the DNC’s email server, which, if true, would show Trump was elected president without Russian help.
Mulvaney tried to walk back his words later in the day as they undercut Trump’s denial there was no quid pro quo that linked the aid to the demand for an investigation.
Perry, for his part, has said repeatedly he has never heard the Biden name come up during all his work on Ukrainian matters.
‘I never heard, and I talked to the president about this,’ he told CBN News earlier this month. ‘I had a conversation with – a phone call – with Rudy Guiliani about it. I’ve talked to the previous ambassador. I’ve talked to the current ambassador. I’ve talked to Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland, the EU ambassador – every name that you’ve seen out in the media and not once, not once as God as my witness, not once was a Biden name – not the former vice president, not his son ever mentioned. Corruption was talked about in the country but it was always a relatively vague term of, you know, the oligarchs and this and that and what have you.’
Perry has strong ties to the Ukraine as part of his work as energy secretary.
In May, he led a U.S. delegation to Kiev for Zelensky’s inauguration in place of Vice President Mike Pence.
He’s visited the country several times as he’s pushed for U.S. energy companies to sell their natural gas to the countries in Eastern Europe – as a way to counter Russian influence in the region – and has tweeted pictures of his meetings with Zelensky.
The energy secretary has managed to avoid scandals during his tenure like those that enveloped his colleagues former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and former Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt.
In fact Perry, who called Trump a ‘cancer on conservatism’ during the 2016 Republican primary process, managed to thrive in the Trump administration.
But he informed the president on Thursday – when he accompanied him on Air Force One to his home state of Dallas – that he would soon be stepping down from his post as Energy secretary.
Trump confirmed Perry’s departure.
‘We already have his replacement. Rick has done a fantastic job. But it was time,’ Trump told reporters in Texas, adding that his departure would come ‘at the end of the year.’
The president said that he has already has picked Perry’s replacement and will be announcing the new Energy secretary shortly.
‘We have the man that we’re going – in this case it’s a man – that we’re going to be putting in Rick’s place. We’ll be announcing it very shortly,’ he said.
Trump said he wasn’t surprised by Perry’s departure as the Energy secretary had informed him months ago that he was planning to leave the administration to pursue something else.
‘I knew six months ago. He told me at the end of the year he’d like to go and he’s got some ideas about doing something else. He’s a terrific guy,’ Trump lauded Perry.
‘Rick and I have been talking for six months. In fact I thought he might go a bit sooner. But he’s got some very big plans. He’s going to be very successful. We have his successor we’ll announce it pretty soon,’ the president continued.
Rick Perry has begun to separate himself from President Donald Trump
Perry said Trump told him to ‘talk to Rudy’ Giuliani about his concerns regarding Ukrainian corruption
The news come just 10 days after Perry, who has been with Trump since March 2017, denied that he was planning to resign his position in the immediate future.
Trump denied that Perry’s replacement would be Texas Governor Greg Abbott or Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy.
Perry’s departure will add to the extensive and ever-growing list of Trump administration officials who have left the White House.
Perry has been one of the administration’s top liaisons with the new Ukrainian president, which has put him under intense scrutiny as the president faces impeachment proceedings into whether he abused his power as president to dig up dirt on Biden.
Trump claims his call with Zelensky this summer was ‘perfect,’ and insists it was an attempt to help weed out corruption from the European nation. He also claims he has a duty, as president, to stop corruption, including from the Bidens.
Hunter Biden accepted a board position with Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2014 – while his father was still serving as Obama’s vice president. He reportedly was paid $50,000 per month in his post at Burisma.
The attorney and lobbyist stepped down from Burisma’s board earlier this year and also announced over the weekend he was leaving his position on the board of a Chinese-backed equity firm where he made millions.